JAPAN

Japan had a brief but intense encounter with Catholic Christianity in the sixteenth century which ended with the banning of Christianity in 1614, the severe persecution of Japanese Christians, and the expulsion of the Jesuits. Nagasaki remained the centre of a secret Christian community (karure kirishitan) which persisted for the two centuries while Japan closed its doors to all contact with the West. In the early nineteenth century, in expectation of an opening of Japan to the Gospel, Protestant missionaries working in China began to work on biblical translation into Japanese; and in 1853 US Commodore Perry forced the Japanese to begin trade and re-establish contact with the West. American missionaries soon took advantage of the concessions, and in 1859 the Revd John Liggins and C. M. Williams of the Episcopal Church arrived in Nagasaki. Japan soon replicated China in the diversity of its American Protestant missions. As in China, the Anglican presence was divided between a number of nationalities and mission agencies. In addition to ECUSA, the CMS started work in 1869 and the SPG in 1873, and the Canadian Anglicans began their first overseas mission in 1888.

The main appeal of the missions was to the samurai, the traditional warrior class, which also comprised intellectuals and administrators. In the aftermath of the American ultimatum, there had been a political ferment in the ‘feudal’ Japan of the Shogunate, which led in 1868 to the re-establishment of the rule of the Tenno (emperor).